[imagesource: Instagram / @cityofcapetown / @craighowes]

The City of Cape Town’s epic firefighters deserve a long round of applause – and several rounds of beer on the house.

After a firefighting effort that spanned all of last night, several hours ago they confirmed that they had managed to quell the epic veld fire that started in Table View sometime on Wednesday afternoon.

Residents of the Mother City have been on the lookout for conflagrations after the South African Weather Service issued fire warnings.

But nobody seems to have been prepared for how extensive the smoke cover was once the fire broke out, with locals from the city’s northern suburbs reportedly smelling the fire from afar, according to Cape Town ETC.

I safely drove through the Table View #fire as it started.
This might not be a wildfire considering today’s temperatures.
But then that wind… what can we say??#Tableviewfire #westcoast pic.twitter.com/HLMmvzYYsi

— Hervé Bakajika (@hgerrards) February 4, 2022

Additionally, firefighters are still having to contend with a separate fire on the slopes of Lourensford in Somerset West, as per the latest reports from EWN.

So we may need to keep our heroes’ beers on ice a little longer:

Masive fire near Table view and Milnerton. Its lit🔥#Milnerton Cape Town pic.twitter.com/ELHT18L8TT

— Aaron (@AaronTheGreat05) June 8, 2022

So far, it seems as though nobody was injured in the Table View fire; nor was there any notable damage to surrounding property.

But the whole portions of the sky seemed to be engulfed in orange in the evening, a lurid citric haze emanating from the fire below:

Fire at Cape Town table view #tableviewfire #capetownfire #fire pic.twitter.com/FxVpctKiFl

— ChaoSong (@mychinaChaoSong) June 8, 2022

Some residents of Milnerton even caught sight of the inferno, which, let’s face it, must be a terrifying spectacle on a school night:

View of the #TableviewFire from our apartment… we’re in Milnerton! 😱 pic.twitter.com/VdLvFvm3HP

— Shane Addinall (@shaneaddinall) June 8, 2022

And one incredible aerial view of the fire is doing the rounds on social media, having seemingly been captured from the vantage of a plane mid-flight:

Look at this that someone took from a plane earlier (not sure who, can’t credit)#tableviewfire pic.twitter.com/arELfj731n

— Super_C (@Super_CherieC) June 8, 2022

As the smoke clears over the next few hours, we should all be reminded of how much we owe to the firefighting teams that protect us – at great personal cost – whenever disaster strikes.

In addition to which, we need to reckon with the fact that the ravages of climate change and environmental destruction are very much our collective responsibility.

[sources:ewn&capetownetc]